Are You Ready?

A spiritual guide for the remnant Bride preparing for the return of the Bridegroom 

Continuing our serialisation of the booklet Are You Ready? by Sarah Winbow, we turn to consider the subject of the revival and whether we can believe for an end-time move of God.

Aslan on the move

The ‘end times’ began with the start of the Church - the period between Christ's first and second coming. While this leaves room for interpretation regarding where precisely we are currently, many believe that the signs show that we’re living in the ‘very last days’.

Surely, by reading and seeking to understand the signs of the times alongside scripture and the unfolding of events in our daily news, we can observe that the enemy is advancing the building of his end-time global platform ready for the emergence of the anti-Christ, false prophet, and the events outlined in scripture for this season. 

The other side to this is that we can also see that God is at work. In the language of Narnia, ‘Aslan is on the move.’ He will move in power in our nation and around the world again before His great and glorious Second Coming. 

“In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s Temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it.” (Isaiah 2:2).

“Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.” (Joel 3: 14).

We are the living stones that comprise God’s ‘temple’ today and individuals from all nations will stream to His people seeking help, support, and an explanation of all that they see happening and experiencing. As the great and dreadful Day of the Lord approaches – when Jesus judges the sin of nations – the Bible says there will be multitudes considering their eternal destiny before God.

“…the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony [i.e. witness, demonstration, proof] to all nations, and then the end will come.” (Matthew 24:13).

There is a harvest to be gathered in and He means you and me to be involved. So, we need to partner with Him and get ourselves ready to host whatever He does.

There is a harvest to be gathered in and He means you and me to be involved.

True Revival

Though few in number, there are some who have reservations over the very notion of revival. It is dismissed as fanaticism, escapism, or romanticism; even unbiblical, because the Bible does not use the noun ‘revival’ specifically. However, it uses the word as a verb - Psalm 85:6 “Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?” – and the Scriptures very much allude to the concept of revival throughout both the Old and New Testaments. 

Before we consider the nature of an end-time revival, we must first pause to burst a few bubbles in popular church thinking about what this might look like or involve.

True revival is not just having a good meeting, repeatedly singing songs implying that ‘revival is here now’ or even taking a worship group out to a small rural chapel to encourage those there with a ‘revival’ meeting. These perceptions limit God to something we can do for Him – a bit like the new cart David built to bring up the Ark (1Chronicles 13:7). Neither constitutes true revival or even renewal – times when the Holy Spirit invades and refreshes the ministry of a local fellowship for a season. 

Indeed, true revival is not about the programme of any single church, but about God Himself overturning man’s way of doing things as His tangible presence comes to brood over communities where He is specifically invited. 

This invitation or ardent beseeching of Him to come and make His presence known and radically change the status-quo is often the response of those desperate to see something at work that is very different to the daily reality they live with. For example, the catalyst for the Ulster revivals of the mid-19th century was the humbling, suffering and trauma induced by the potato famine; in the 1949-52 Hebridean revival the catalyst was a genuine concern for the island’s young people who appeared to be worldly, living their lives without any sense of God, despite many of their parents having been touched and changed by revival a decade previously. In each of these cases, ardent, urgent, desperate, sacrificial prayer was the key to God’s breaking in. 

R.W. Floyd has said, “There is no great movement of God that has ever occurred that does not begin with the extraordinary prayer of God’s people.”

If we want to see God move again in the British Isles then we must turn our attention to Him and seek His face – not His hand – with all our heart, soul and strength.

If we want to see God move again in the British Isles then we must turn our attention to Him and seek His face – not His hand – with all our heart, soul and strength.

When He does come down, God’s presence brings a new consciousness of Himself – leading a person to humble himself and get right with God – to be holy, pure, truthful and righteous. This conviction falls both on the church and the unchurched, bringing with it a widespread conviction of sin coupled with a deep awareness of the nearness of His judgement and a reverent fear of the Lord. The fruit of this is genuine, deep, heartfelt repentance within the church, a release of great joy, a burden and love for the lost, widespread evangelism and a great many salvations. 

This hunger after God and His presence also brings with it an even greater emphasis on prayer and an intentional longing for His presence, drawing closer to Him, in times of intimacy. In many instances, a fresh release of song-writing may occur. These are the signs of true revival that have happened in documented historic revivals within the British Isles.

My colleague Tom Lennie has documented scores of revivals that have occurred across Scotland in his well-researched and detailed books:

• Land of Many Revivals: Scotland’s Extraordinary Legacy of Christian Revivals Over Four Centuries (1527–1857).
• Scotland Ablaze: The Twenty-Year Fire of Revival that Swept Scotland 1858 – 79.
• Glory in the Glen: A History of Evangelical Revivals in Scotland 1880–1940.
• Island Aflame: The Famed Lewis Awakening that Never Occurred and the Glorious Revival that Did (Lewis & Harris 1949–52}. 

Glory in the Glen also contains a lengthy analysis of evangelical awakenings, and considers a plethora of features rarely discussed in revival literature not least,

• Facilitators of revival, 
• Human instruments of revival, 
• Main characteristics of revival, 
• Impact of revivals, 
• Revival and the denominations
• Opposition to revival
• Revivals and the charismata
• Exaggerating revival.

When God next moves in our islands, we must not expect it to look the same as what has gone before. God is a multi-faceted Creator and rarely does the same thing twice.

The notion of ‘Revival’

There is a problem in considering an end-time revival; it is the word ‘revival’ itself, because ‘revival’, just like the word ‘church’, is a loaded term that immediately conjures up certain pictures, hopes and expectations. 

The global landscape of our world has changed significantly since the last sustained true revival on British soil, that in the Hebrides between 1949-52. So, when God next moves in our islands, we must not expect it to look the same as what has gone before. God is a multi-faceted Creator and rarely does the same thing twice. We cannot predict or attempt to build it for ourselves, which is a very good thing. 

Recognisable differences from how revivals manifested in the past will be signs to us that it is authentically God at work. For example, in the Hebrides alone, there were very marked differences in the way God moved in the 1939 revival than in how He worked in the later movement. The ‘39 awakening was not a preaching revival, more a revival of prayer and worship occurring in people’s homes; whereas the later move was most definitely focused around gospel services in church buildings. After meetings were then commonly held in homes, whereby individuals were left to wrestle with the cost of giving up control of their lives to wholeheartedly follow Jesus as true disciples. Apart from the preaching of the word, there was next to nothing by way of human intervention – for example, no prayer ministry team – just God. 

The famed Welsh revival of 1904 was also quite distinct to those in the Hebrides and different again from the Ulster revivals of the 19th century. God’s ways are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:9); the wind blows wherever it pleases (John 3:8); He moves as He wishes and it cannot be accurately predicted.

Revival Soon?

The word ‘revival’ also speaks of something that began, was sustained for a period of time and then ended. If we are indeed in the ‘very last days’ and the outworking of God’s shaking the world and everything in it, then surely we must expect that He will also work in His mercy to bring about a harvest of souls in the midst of judgement. 

In April 2025, the Bible Society published new data based on findings from their survey carried out by YouGov which reverses long-held beliefs that Christianity is declining in Britain. Over 13,000 people were surveyed on church involvement across England and Wales. Data was compared to a near-identical study of a similar sample group in 2018.

Whilst it is way too early to consider this to be anything like a true revival, clearly God is at work in pockets around the nation.

Across all age groups, church attendance in England and Wales increased by a massive 56% between 2018 and 2024. There are now over 2 million more people attending church than there were six years ago. Most notably, attendance among Gen Z (ages 18-24) has quadrupled, from 4% to 16%. 

Whilst it is way too early to consider this to be anything like a true revival, clearly God is at work in pockets around the nation. This may well ebb and flow as the Spirit moves wherever He wills and for however long He wills; it might even gain momentum, grow and be fruitful right up until the moment of Jesus’ return. 

The truth is that we simply do not know what God will do or when and how He will do it – although, naturally, we hope and pray for a sustained move of God and the harvest it will bring.

This theme to be continued …